Aide: Edwards refused to end affair

GREENSBORO, N.C., May 4 (UPI) -- Former U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards cursed a campaign aide who advised him to end his torrid affair with Rielle Hunter, the aide testified.

In testimony Friday in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, N.C., Peter Scher, 51, said he confronted the former U.S. senator in the fall of 2006 at a New York hotel and Edwards exploded, telling Scher to perform an anatomically impossible act on himself.

"I said, 'John, what the blank are you doing?'" Scher testified. He said Edwards responded he didn't need a babysitter and told Scher to back off, ABC reported.

Edwards is on trial for allegedly using $1 million in contributions from campaign donors to keep secret his affair with Hunter, who became pregnant.

John Davis, another former aide, said Hunter told him at a Detroit hotel in February 2007 that she and Edwards were "very much in love," CNN reported.

Davis said he told her he "did not care about this because I was focused on the campaign."

Edwards later told him he and Hunter were not in a relationship, Davis testified Thursday at Edwards' trial.

"He told me she was crazy and that he denied there was an affair," Davis said.

He said he believed Edwards.

Jurors also heard Thursday from Bryan Huffman, a North Carolina interior designer who served as a conduit for contributions from heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon.

Mellon, Huffman said, gave $725,000 she didn't consider specifically for Edwards' campaign but did not know contributions went toward paying Hunter's expenses.

Edwards is charged with six felony counts -- four counts of collecting illegal campaign contributions, one count of making false statements and one count of conspiracy. If convicted, he could be sentenced to 30 years in prison.

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